This West Vancouver Hilltop Home is Made for Entertaining (With Gallery)

In West Vancouver’s Sentinel Hill neighbourhood, an unadulterated view of treetops, down to the glistening waters of the Burrard Inlet and to the buildings on Vancouver’s skyline is on display—and this is exactly where one family decided to set up their home sanctuary when they moved back to Vancouver after living and working in Califonia for a decade.

Drawing inspiration from their lives back in California, the homeowners wanted to create a space that was drenched in light, with an all-seasons indoor-outdoor entertaining area. 

To get the job done on the 5,400 square-foot, three-story abode (complete with four bedrooms and four bathrooms), they tapped West Vancouver design-builders Upward Construction to draft the build from the ground up, then enlisted interior designer Sarah Gallop to bring their California vision to life.

“The skylights were a specific design request from the homeowners, because they wanted as much sunshine in here as possible to emulate the California climate, even though it was colder, and they knew they were moving to a place with more rain,” says Kevin Leskiw, principal of Upward Construction, who broke ground at the Sentinel Hill spot during the pandemic.

The main natural light source, however, isn’t really a skylight—it’s a sweeping wall of glass panels that connect the living room to an expansive terrace patio, making way for an open-concept living and dining room. 

The wall of glass is a motorized NanaWall cero® system that slides away with the touch of a button, ordered from Germany before the ground was even broken. 

“This area is the main feature of the whole house with inside-outside, living with full NanaWall doors that open,” the builder says.

The patio overlooks the pool below—another major entertaining feature complete with a hot tub. 

“They’re very social people,” says Leskiw, “so they were envisioning people sitting there in the pool, here in the hot tub and mingling with a drink in their hand.”

The deep end of the pool is pushed to nearly eight feet to suit the couple’s competitive-swimmer daughters while the Baja shelf and lounging ledge was designed for evenings when they entertain. 

Next to the pool on the ground level, a “true four-seasons” room is partly enclosed by the above balcony—but ping pong tables and an outdoor fireplace anchor the indoor-outdoor lower patio.

The fireplace is built with board-formed concrete, meant to mimic sun‑bleached timber.

“This was a special mix, because for a board‑formed concrete you want to have it go right next to the grain of the wood to create that grain,” Leskiw explains. “It’s become kind of a trendy style, and so you do it intentionally now to create this wood grain appearance, with the little ridges in it.”

Meanwhile, Gallop’s team was tasked with bringing that sunny, sun-bleached outdoor aesthetic to the inside. 

“Our job was a continuation of what [Upward was] doing, bringing it to life as far as the way it looks and feels on the inside,” says Gallop.

Starting from the main entrance of the house, a light stone wall drops from the main floor down to the lower‑level wine room, linking the two entertaining zones. 

“One of the things that can happen in spaces like this that are lighter and softer overall is they can feel quite stark, and that’s one of the things that we were trying to do with that wall that runs down to the wine with that stone—connecting the spaces across the main floor and the lower floor,” Gallop explains.

“If you are entertaining and you’ve got a big party going on and people might be across both those spaces. The connection of the stairwell with the stone and bringing that transition between those spaces was something that we wanted, so that they’re not feeling entirely separate,” she says.

Downstairs, the entertaining brief plays out with a moody and saturated theatre, walls awash in a dark teal, plus a bar area that keeps drink service away from the main traffic. The big idea was to give these entertainers a variety of ways to keep their guests occupied, and to keep the home drenched in natural sunlight—no matter the weather.

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